In response to the tireless activists and organizers demanding the protections stay in place, New York State took steps to adopt these protections, add gender identity to the definition of sex, and prohibit discrimination by this emergency rule. Let’s push to make sure this rule becomes permanent! The State of New York needs to hear from you by August 7, 2017. Email your comments to comments [at] dfs [dot] ny [dot] gov.

Email template:

To: Department of Financial Services

E-mail: comments [at] dfs [dot] ny [dot] gov

Re: DFS-25-17-00002-EP

My name is ­____________­­­­­­­___________________. I live in ___________________________.

I support the emergency rule, Minimum Standards for Form, Content and Sale of Health Insurance, Including Standards of Full and Fair Disclosure, becoming permanent. This was published in the New York State Register on July 12, 2017, and is open for notice and comment.

I support this rule because insurance plans should not discriminate against transgender, gender non-conforming and intersex people (TGNCI) on the basis of our gender identity and/or sex. TGNCI New Yorkers should be free from discrimination while accessing health care. Plans should not be able to refuse to enroll TGNCI people in a plan, cancel coverage or impose higher rates because of TGNCI status or because of a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Plans should not be allowed to deny coverage for care typically associated with one gender, for example, an insurance company should not be able to deny a transgender woman coverage for a prostate exam because she was listed as female in her records. Plans should also not be permitted to deny coverage for gynecological care because someone’s sex at birth was assigned male because that is discrimination.

Transition-related care should also not be excluded from coverage plans in New York because that is discrimination on the basis of sex and gender identity. Insurance should not be permitted to have automatic or categorical exclusions of transition-related care. There also should not be limits on coverage for trans-related care, especially if those limits are discriminatory and do not apply to cisgender (not transgender) people. Treatment for gender dysphoria and the availability of gender-related care is of the utmost importance and I support policies and practices in New York that affirm and support trans lives.

I also support this emergency rule and its permanent adoption by DFS because:

[YOUR COMMENTS HERE]

Moreover, discrimination because of sex should include discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, false pregnancy, termination of pregnancy, or recovery therefrom, childbirth or related medical conditions, sex stereotyping, and gender identity.

In addition, I stress that grandfathered plans should not continue to discriminate against TGNCI because certain people have these plans and don’t know they aren’t protected. People of all plans should receive the full protections afforded under this current regulation and not be at risk for discrimination simply because they got a plan before the protections were put into effect. To permit grandfathered plans is to permit discriminatory plans to continue to treat one class of New Yorkers differently than the others and is contrary to public policy and a just New York.

I also support the inclusion of protections against discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions. I support this measure because it should not be hard to get insurance if you are HIV+ or if you have any other pre-existing condition. Transgender people should rest assured that insurance companies cannot deny or drop coverage to an individual because that individual is transgender – which some plans think is a prepre-existingndition, or if have or ever had a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Insurance companies should be banned from dropping or denying coverage to individuals or their dependents because of their pre-existing conditions in New York.

Thank you,

_________________________________

The Miss Major-Jay Toole Building for Social Justice147 West 24th StreetNew York, NY 10011